xoJanehttp://www.xojane.com/
enCopyright 2015 Say Media, Inc.http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssTue, 31 Mar 2015 11:14:23 -0700I'm Tired Of Feeling Vaguely Apologetic for Being Allergic to Your Pets<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01ca8690000199de" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a5.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MDYzNDkxODMwMDgzNTU0.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>Isn’t it hilarious how, when someone who’s allergic to cats comes over to your place, the cat always goes straight for them? It’s like it knows! It just wants to make friends! That’s so cute!</p><p>No. Stop it. Stop it right now. Pick up your damn cat, and put it somewhere else. </p><p>My name is Sara, and I’m allergic to so many things (when my test came back, the doc summed it up as, “You’re basically allergic to everything except food”). Pollen and dust are big ones. Tops, though, is animal dander. All cats -- yep, even the hairless and supposedly hypoallergenic ones -- and some, but thankfully not all, dogs.&nbsp;</p><p>I'm also allergic to horses and their ilk, which is less of a problem in everyday life (and also once got me out of having to ride down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on a mule). I'm allergic to ferrets, hamsters, bunnies and guinea pigs. Never gotten to touch a sloth, but I’m not optimistic.</p><p>I’m here to have a little talk with you on behalf of the millions of other people (15% of Americans, according to a recent report) who are allergic to your adorable pets. We’ve been sniffling stoically for too long. </p><p>You know how it feels when you have a cold? The runny nose, the constant feeling you’re about to sneeze, the watery eyes? How’d you like to come down with one every time you walked into the home of a pet-owning friend? If your friend had some magical and easy way of making you NOT catch a cold, wouldn’t you be kind of pissed if they didn’t? </p><p>Because I’m tired of feeling like a killjoy when I avoid touching, or actively inch away from, animals I know will make me sneeze or itch. Our culture is pet-centric like never before -- what is the Internet really for, if not videos of kitties trying to fit into boxes? -- and, thus, not being able to hang with some people’s pets IRL seems to have ends up being treated like a character flaw.&nbsp;</p><p>It’s not. It’s a medical condition, and I’d love for you to treat it like one. God knows we spend enough time on food allergies; these days, the world will cater to whatever culinary sensitivity you can dish out. Being allergic to animals, on the other hand, is the opposite of trendy.&nbsp;</p><p>I grew up in the ’80s, a time when allergy testing wasn’t really a big thing. We always had a cat, and I always had a “cold.” My childhood friends can attest that I left a constant trail of Kleenex wherever I went, which you can only imagine is a wildly attractive quality. It wasn’t until I moved into the blissfully pet-free zone of a college dorm that I began to glimpse the joy of a life lived without a neverending stream of snot. </p><p>Fast forward to today, when I once again live with both a cat and a dog. I blame love: My boyfriend Todd had them when we met. Actually, he had two cats, one of which dropped dead about a week after we met; I think he still suspects I ginned up some sort of allergic-person sorcery. (She was terrifyingly longhaired, but I swear I had nothing to do with the demise of his beloved Schmoopy.)&nbsp;</p><p>I moved in with him in January, and I’ve since been navigating the tricky business of co-catbitation. </p><div tml-image="ci01ca869020019512" tml-image-caption="You shall not pass, cat." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a4.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MDYzNDkyMzY2OTMxMjE4.jpg" /><figcaption>You shall not pass, cat.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Here’s how I cope: I’m on four kinds of allergy medication (Zyrtec, prescription antihistamine and two different nasal sprays), and I maintain a healthy distance from Georgia, our elderly, cantankerous and possibly senile feline. I give her treats and verbal salutations, and Todd provides all the cuddles. We vacuum often. </p><p>Our dog, Soupcan Pete, is less of a problem; a coonhound/beagle mix, he’s sleek and shorthaired and doesn’t make me sneeze at all. Which is the best thing ever, because I adore snuggling him (and playing the banjo for him, because is a hound dog). </p><div tml-image="ci01ca869040019512" tml-image-caption="Soupcan likes to be serenaded pre-snuggling." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a1.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MDYzNDkyOTAzNzc0ODUx.jpg" /><figcaption>Soupcan likes to be serenaded pre-snuggling.</figcaption></figure></div><p>I’m sure I would love cuddling Georgia too, in theory, but I just can’t. So I don’t. And I’m OK with that. </p><p>Per my doctor’s recommendation, the cat is not allowed in our bedroom. Occasionally, Todd will slip and give me a guilt trip about this (“She’s gonna die soon! She’s so lonely out there!”) To which I can only say, Dude, she’s a cat. She’s nocturnal. She can handle it. </p><p>I’m sorry if that sounds cold-hearted, but I’ve spent my whole life feeling vaguely apologetic about being allergic, and I’m kind of done with that. It’s not that difficult to implement a few lifestyle changes to make an allergic pal or significant other more comfortable.</p><p><strong>To boil it down: </strong></p><p>1. When hosting, find out whether any of your guests are allergic to whatever type of pet(s) you have. Same goes for dating and hooking up; I’d assume the person would eventually mention it, but on a first or second date they might be embarrassed. </p><p>2. If you are indeed having an allergic person over, vacuum and/or lint-roll pieces of furniture they’re likely to sit on. Not only does this make them less likely to breathe in fur and dander, it also makes them less likely to bring some home with them. (If you live in a small apartment, regular vacuuming is KEY. If you’re in a bigger apartment or a house, at least in my experience, the dander seems to get more widely dispersed and isn’t quite as virulent.)</p><div tml-image="ci01ca8690500199de" tml-image-caption="Soupcan and Georgia, modeling the couch that should be vacuumed before company comes over, and that I never sit on." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a5.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MDYzNDkzNDQwNjk2Mjkw.jpg" /><figcaption>Soupcan and Georgia, modeling the couch that should be vacuumed before company comes over, and that I never sit on.</figcaption></figure></div><p>3. If your pet is the sheddy type, lint-roll yourself before you leave the house. There are some people who are so doused in cat hair they make my eyes water and my nose itch just to be near them.</p><p>4. If your cat or dog is the friendly type, verbally check in to see if it’s OK before letting them get all up in your friend’s business. A lot of us are too polite to ask you to call them off, or we don’t want to seem uptight or like we don’t like pets. (Most of us do. Some of us don’t. Really, it’s irrelevant.) </p><p>5. Particularly if you have multiple pets, it might be nice to keep a supply of Benadryl. If you a guest suddenly become sneezy, offer one. (Fun party/family gathering tip: Benadryl plus booze gets you druuuunk.)</p><p>6. If you’re living, or about to move in, with a roommate or partner who’s allergic, sit down and talk about how you’ll handle the pet situation. Don’t expect the other person to just dose up on meds and be OK with whatever. Because that is rude. </p><p>7. Designate certain areas of the house or apartment as pet-free, if the allergic person needs a non-hairy space to escape to. Maybe this means buying a kiddie gate, or keeping a door closed where you previously didn’t have to. Hey, life is about compromise.&nbsp;</p><p>Hopefully, the benefit of having said allergic person in your life will outweigh the inconvenience of your cat or dog not having the full run of the place anymore. As mentioned before, they’re pets (and, I’m assuming, because you xoJane’ers are good folks, well-cared-for pets at that). They will adjust. And our non-sneezy selves will be ever so grateful you took our stupid allergies into consideration.&nbsp;</p><p>Yes, we think they suck too, but you gotta play the genetic hand you’re dealt. At least it’s not gluten -- ‘tis a far better thing, in my opinion, to have to avoid cats than cookies.</p>It’s not that difficult to implement a few lifestyle changes to make an allergic pal or significant other more comfortable.http://www.xojane.com/relationships/healthy-how-not-to-be-a-dick-to-a-pet-allergic-person
http://www.xojane.com/relationships/healthy-how-not-to-be-a-dick-to-a-pet-allergic-personRelationshipsTue, 31 Mar 2015 11:00:00 -0700Sara StewartWORST ROOMMATE EVER: My Friend of 10 Years Blew Her Rent at an Anime Convention<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>I’ve had my share of hits and misses with roommates. There was the college dorm mate who decided to leave an open jar of curry paste right next to my milk over and over (gag, curry cereal milk) and had me lie to her mom for her when she was out having sex with her boyfriend. And the girl who was some brand of Christian that didn’t believe in birth control who often had her 12 siblings over for prayer circles. Let’s just say that I was anxious for a shot at living on my own.&nbsp;</p><p>When a good friend of many years, Mandy, told me she lived in an affordable complex in a nice part of town, I leased my own unit there. And two years later when the neighborhood got a little rough, we started talking about getting a two-bedroom lease together somewhere a little less sketchy. </p><p>Mandy was a hoarder, although I didn’t know the word for it at the time. The two of us had known each other since my freshman year of high school and her senior, when I noticed she had a brand new Sailor Moon RPG book in study hall.&nbsp;</p><p>She had been messy back then, but what teenager wasn’t? She tidied when she was forced to, often with a groan and a grin as she just shoved most of her mess under her bed, but it was when she moved out on her own that I really saw that it went beyond messy and into problem territory.</p><div tml-image="ci01c94662b001c80a" tml-image-caption="This is how Mandy kept her room, even when she had guests come over to stay the weekend. It pretty much never improved." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,w_620/MTI4NzExNDUyOTU2NjA4NTIy.png" /><figcaption>This is how Mandy kept her room, even when she had guests come over to stay the weekend. It pretty much never improved.</figcaption></figure></div><p>So when we first started talking about moving in together, I was really wary. At 30 I wouldn’t have even considered it; the way she kept her place should have been a huge red flag. But in my early 20s I was much more of a doormat, especially for long-standing friends. She and I had weathered quite a bit. She had stuck by me start to finish <a href="http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/my-girlfriend-was-murdered-and-it-took-me-a-decade-to-move-on">after the murder of my partner</a>, and was one of the only people that I felt I could trust at this particular point in my life.&nbsp;</p><p>So I did. I made her promise to keep her mess contained to her room and to work to keep our mutual space clean for when I had people over. Beyond that, so long as we got the deposit back, I was fine. So we signed a lease, moved in together, and for a few months everything was OK.</p><p>The thing about dealing with grief is it comes at you in pieces, and it can manifest in ways you don’t expect. I was prepared for the crippling sorrow, the seemingly random urge to hunch down in a ball and cry just because I got a quick whiff of cheap strawberry perfume, and the extended periods of utter emptiness. I hadn’t been prepared for the sudden onslaught of self-loathing.&nbsp;</p><p>It was a hateful, gripping thing that told me I wasn’t worth anything from anyone, that I didn’t deserve to be treated well. That I’d lost the only person who I’d ever manage to trick into thinking otherwise.&nbsp;</p><p>Thankfully, I’d been seeing a therapist since the murder, and she encouraged me to start setting boundaries with people. <a href="http://www.xojane.com/sex/how-set-sex-boundaries-someone-who-knows">Setting boundaries</a> is really, really hard, guys. Setting boundaries means telling people, telling friends, that you aren’t going to do things for them sometimes. It means saying no. It means admitting to yourself that you have some kind of value outside of what you can do for other people, which is something I still struggle with on my bad days.</p><p>I started with the safest place -- close friends. I knew there’d be an adjustment period, but these were the people I loved and trusted beyond any others. The people who were there with me through thick and thin. Mandy was an obvious choice. When I told her about it she was completely supportive, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled.</p><p>But anyone who’s started to set boundaries with people can probably tell you this next part: Everyone’s real supportive right up until it’s them you have to say no to. We worked very different schedules, and sometimes she’d call me up late at night to ask me to pick her up from a bus stop so she didn’t have to walk or take a second bus.&nbsp;</p><p>In emergencies, this was fine, but it had turned from an occasional emergency into a car service scenario. So I told her in advance that I wasn’t going to do it anymore. Between the two of us, I was the only one who had a car, so she’d ask me to take her grocery shopping. At 11 pm.&nbsp;</p><p>I told her that I did my grocery shopping at 2 PM on Saturdays and if she wanted to come she was welcome to. So when she woke up and stumbled out of her room after I’d already gone and come back and acted like I’d just take her anyway, it was a pretty rude awakening for her to find out that I really wouldn’t. Little changes like these were fueling my confidence, but they were killing my friendship.</p><p>Things never really improved from there. She started having other friends over as late as 3 AM on nights when I had to wake up early for work, blasting the television or talking loudly right outside my window.&nbsp;</p><p>And the mess started to get even more out of control. It bled into the living room by way of mud-caked bikes rolled across our carpet and week-old dishes sitting in the sink. I’d let her know that I was having someone over several days in advance so she’d have time to do the dishes, and she’d make her promises and promptly ignore them.&nbsp;</p><p>They started to grow things, and I remember at one point moving a dish of what I think was once moldy tea to one side and finding tiny white squirming things clinging to the sides of the sink. I almost threw up, but instead I hurriedly poured an entire container of bleach down our sink and scrubbed it down until it shined.&nbsp;</p><p>After that particular confrontation, dishes never got that bad again, but the state of things was always pretty abysmal. Rather than clean up after her, I’d pile her things, including dirty dishes, in a box and place them in her room so they’d be out of the way. Sometimes it would take her upward of a week to even notice the box was there.</p><div tml-image="ci01c94665c00199de" tml-image-caption="This is the hallway that led from her bedroom to her bathroom. You can bet I thank my lucky stars that we had a two bed two bath." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,w_620/MTI4NzExNDY2NjQ2ODI2OTc4.png" /><figcaption>This is the hallway that led from her bedroom to her bathroom. You can bet I thank my lucky stars that we had a two bed two bath.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Over the holidays, she accidentally left her apartment key at her mother’s house. So she decided rather than get up an hour earlier than her usual 1 PM wake-up time to go by the leasing office and pick up a new one, it’d be easier if she just left everything unlocked all day in the middle of one of the largest cities in the country.&nbsp;</p><p>The fact that all the things in our living room (and almost everything of value in the apartment) belonged to me probably played a part in how little she cared. Two weeks later, when she still hadn't gotten the key, it took me finally putting my foot down and locking her out for her to finally get it replaced.</p><p>It was only a handful of months after that before things really hit their peak. </p><p>It’s worth mentioning at this point that Mandy wasn’t the best at waking up on time for things. She’d just landed a steady job with a well-respected company in their call center, a job that started in the early afternoon.&nbsp;</p><p>She’d been doing this kind of work for a long time now, and in her late 20s you’d think she’d have managed to work out how to set an alarm clock. But day after day she would be scrambling for the door in a panic, late for work again. She stayed up late watching anime, reading fanfiction, and buying <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Djinshi">doujinshi</a> of her favorite pairings from Japan over the Internet. </p><p>Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge nerd, and at the time I was super into anime. But when you have a job, that stuff’s gotta come first. It's hard to feed your habit if you don’t have any money, which was a lesson Mandy was about to learn because she managed to get herself fired over being late one too many times. </p><p>I still vividly remember the phone call. She was in tears, stressed and beyond freaked out. Rent was due in two days, she said, and now she didn’t have a job anymore. Despite the numerous issues we’d had recently, I tried to calm her down if for no other reason than self-preservation. I reminded her that she should still have the money for rent this month, so we’d get that out of the way then worry about the next. There was an awkward pause.</p><p>You see, there’d been a big anime convention a weekend or so before. She’d gone, along with her friends, and on top of paying for the entrance ticket she’d bought plush toys, doujinshi and other little knick-knacks. In essence, she’d burned through all her cash on stupid shit and needed me to cover for her. </p><p>Even if I’d been able to, I wouldn’t have done it. I was beyond livid. She’d lost her job because she couldn’t get out of bed before noon and now she wanted me to pay for her mistakes?&nbsp;</p><p>Something inside me snapped in that moment, something that’s stuck with me all these years later. A kind of confidence, a sense of self worth that I’d never been able to give myself before. I’d been mad like this on behalf of my friends when they’d been treated poorly before, but never for myself.&nbsp;</p><p>My trusted friend of nearly a decade thought this was what I was good for? This was what defined our friendship? No. Fuck that. I was done. After months, years of telling myself that I deserved better, I finally believed it.</p><p>I told her I wouldn’t be paying her way, and she acted like I’d just told her that I’d thrown a sack of kittens into a river. Lots of heated words were exchanged and at the end of them, we decided we needed a little space apart to calm down so we could talk about this again later.&nbsp;</p><p>I was about to go out of town on a business trip for the weekend and she was going to be staying with a friend. I’d suggested that we split the fee to sever our lease and go our separate ways as a kind of last ditch effort to repair our friendship, and I was hoping that we’d pick up there when I got back. As it turned out, we wouldn’t be picking up anywhere. </p><p>When I got back from my out of town meeting, she was gone. And I mean gone. All of her things were packed, she’d left the keys on the table along with a couple of movies she’d borrowed from me forever ago. But none of the money. Not that month’s rent, not the severance fee, nothing for our shared household bills. She’d ditched me with all of her responsibilities when I’d refused to lay down and take them on for her willingly.&nbsp;</p><p>In total she cost me around $2,000, and when that’s roughly 1/12 of your annual salary, it’s not an amount you can afford to lose.</p><p>So I nagged her. Relentlessly. I’d worked at a law firm before and knew how to file in small claims court, so I made sure everything was documented. To my surprise, she started to reply. At first just with sob stories about how I was a terrible friend who was trying to “squeeze blood from a stone,” but eventually pockets of money would trickle in.&nbsp;</p><p>My response to each of her messages was a simple “Thank you for paying me, here’s how much you still owe.” And over the course of several months, I dragged every penny out of her. I was ready to wash my hands of the whole thing and move on.</p><p>Around six months later, I got an e-mail from Mandy. It was long, and at first looked like an apology letter. The further in I got, the more I realized it wasn’t really. She took no responsibility for ditching me, instead choosing to place the blame at the feet of friends who she said talked her into making a poor choice. She said she regretted ruining our friendship over it. </p><p>My reply to her was simple. I was also sorry that our friendship had been ruined by this, and I wished her the best in the future. And I really do. I hope she got out of her dead-end job and the small town she hated, I hope she found great friends and built up a life for herself that makes her glad every day for the choices she’s made.&nbsp;</p><p>I hate carrying around baggage. If there’s one thing I learned from my partner’s death, it’s that baggage just isn’t worth it. And Mandy had given me an additional lesson that’s just as crucial -- letting go. I knew then that I didn’t want to carry around Mandy’s baggage ever again.&nbsp;</p><p><em>&nbsp;Had a terrible roommate? Send your pitches for "WORST ROOMMATE EVER" to pitches@xojane.com.&nbsp;</em></p>At one point, I moved a dish of moldy tea to one side and found tiny white squirming things clinging to the sides of the sink. I almost threw up.http://www.xojane.com/relationships/worst-roommate-ever-blew-her-rent-at-an-anime-convention
http://www.xojane.com/relationships/worst-roommate-ever-blew-her-rent-at-an-anime-conventionRelationshipsTue, 31 Mar 2015 10:00:00 -0700Natalie SlaughterI Stopped Delivering Babies So That I Can Provide Abortions<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>I stopped delivering babies so that I can provide abortions. This is probably something you haven’t heard very often. It is also not something I have said out loud very often. </p><p>I love delivering babies. I never wanted to give it up. And yet I’ve found myself in a place where I had to make a choice no obstetrician/gynecologist (ob/gyn) should have to make: provide care for women who deliver babies, or provide care for women who need abortions, just not both. </p><p>I am an ob/gyn who cares deeply about gender equality and reproductive justice. I believe that doctors in my specialty should be willing and able to perform abortions for their patients; this is part of basic reproductive health care. After all, one in three women will have an abortion by the time she is 45. This is not just someone you know; it’s someone you love – your sister, mother, best friend, maybe even you. </p><div tml-image="ci01cac66a2001c80a" tml-image-caption="Nicole" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a4.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMzNjk3OTAyMzY0Njgy.jpg" /><figcaption>Nicole</figcaption></figure></div><p>Unfortunately, I have found this is not always easy to do. I encountered obstacles to learning about abortion in medical school, to getting trained in how to provide abortions in residency, and to integrating abortion care into my ob/gyn practice.</p><p>As a medical student in the Northeast, I was actively involved in Medical Students for Choice (MSFC), a non-profit organization that aims to improve medical student education about abortion. We had our work cut out for us. While the hospital where I rotated ‘permitted’ abortions, the other affiliated hospital, where some of my classmates rotated, was a Catholic institution that prohibited them. It was pure chance whether or not students would be able to participate in abortion care in our medical school. It didn’t matter if you wanted to learn it or not; it was left up to chance.</p><p>I remember wondering how odd it seemed that such a common procedure (more common, at that time, than C-sections) was not uniformly taught in medical school. We learned so many esoteric things; it seemed wrong not to teach something so basic. I thought at first that perhaps my med school experience was unique, but when I spoke with students from other schools I learned that my experience was not at all unusual. Abortion was considered to be so ‘controversial’ that at some schools students weren’t even allowed to organize an official MSFC campus group.</p><p>Things didn’t get much easier once I started my ob/gyn residency, which brought me to the southeastern United States. My program offered limited abortion training despite being an academic medical center affiliated with a large non-profit hospital where there was a significant need for abortion care. I was told that years back a nearby abortion clinic trained some residents, but this, supposedly, incited picketers and other unwanted publicity for the hospital. </p><p>It shocked me that a few protesters — or really, cowardice — could lead the hospital administration to decide that it was okay for residents to not be taught a relatively simple procedure that so many of their future patients would need. I didn’t want to make waves and learned where I could send my patients who needed abortion care. And instead of being deterred, I became ever more determined to provide full-spectrum ob/gyn care, including abortion, after residency.</p><p>Unfortunately, working at a federally qualified health clinic in the rural Southeast to repay a med school scholarship obligation after residency again restricted the care I could provide. At a clinic receiving federal funds, I was ‘gagged’ and not permitted (or so I was told) to discuss, let alone perform, abortions.&nbsp;</p><p>I recall one patient in particular who needed an abortion at 20 weeks in order to save her life. Legally speaking, I probably could have provided her with the care she needed given that her life was in danger, but I had to confront the fact that I was not adequately trained to provide this care. More than anything, I felt helpless and ashamed that I had to send this patient to another doctor to save her life.</p><p>Unwilling to live with this shame, I sought and completed a women’s reproductive health fellowship under the tutelage of one of the world’s leading abortion experts. I learned how to provide compassionate and skilled abortion care up through 20 weeks gestation and integrated this care into my practice of general ob/gyn and research. It was like manna from heaven: my ideal job.</p><p>After finishing my two-year fellowship, my husband’s job took us back to the city where we trained and I found myself back at square one: unable to find a medical practice that would allow me to provide comprehensive reproductive health care. </p><p>I had to choose: Either be a general ob/gyn who delivers babies – which I loved doing – but who is not allowed to provide abortion care; or become a gynecologist who provides abortion care. I chose the latter.</p><p>Despite years of training and a passion for obstetrics, I decided to stop delivering babies so that I could provide abortions. I could no longer turn my back on the patients who need abortion care. In the Southeast there are plenty of folks providing high quality obstetrics care, but not nearly enough providing high quality abortion care. I took a job as an abortion provider.</p><p>I am also committed to training future doctors in the way I was trained in fellowship, so I work with my residency program and its medical school to train residents and medical students in abortion care. One of the first things I tell them about is the case of a young woman in a suburban area in the Southeast who died because her ob/gyn was not trained to perform an abortion at 14 weeks. In 2015, no woman in the United States should have to die because her doctor(s) can’t perform this common procedure. When personal beliefs and politics limit what doctors are taught, our patients suffer unacceptable consequences.</p><p>I have come to believe that abortion care is such an integral part of our specialty that those who join the specialty ought to be trained and required to provide this care. </p><p>At the same time, I recognize and admit that dealing with the stigma and emotional toll attached to being an abortion provider is not always easy. A mentor once described the emotions of providing abortion care as a means of relieving a woman's burden of suffering. What I took him to mean is that by providing abortion care I am helping my patient get on the other side of this difficult experience with dignity and support. I am suffering, if you will, to enable her to suffer less.</p><p>In addition to being emotionally charged work, abortion is of course highly politicized and stigmatized. My decision in recent years to provide and teach abortion care has cost me professional opportunities. On a personal level, my family and friends have thankfully not yet been targeted. My name and image do feature prominently on an anti-choice website so I have real concerns about this. </p><p>In many ways, however, I still consider giving up obstetrics to be my biggest sacrifice to do this work. I was good at it and derived immense satisfaction from it. The process of delivering a baby was a rush. It was difficult to decide not to do this and I am continuing to try to figure out a way to integrate obstetrics into my practice again. But unless and until more health care providers decide to integrate abortion care into their practices, I will continue to fill this gap.</p><p>Participating in obstetrics care is often joyous, whereas ending a pregnancy is often not. Those of us who choose to assist women in this way do it because we can't imagine not doing it. We think it is unethical to do otherwise. We do it, not because it is glamorous or because we expect to be glorified, but because we care deeply about women and trust their family planning decisions.</p><p>Today, after five years of being an abortion provider, I find that I'm good at providing abortion care and derive immense satisfaction from it. No longer do I need the rush of delivering babies. Instead I seek balance and am reminded that any personal sacrifice I have made pales in comparison to those of my patients. I am humbled and honored to be their doctor.</p>In the Southeast there are plenty of folks providing high quality obstetrics care, but not nearly enough providing high quality abortion care.http://www.xojane.com/issues/i-gave-up-delivering-babies-so-i-could-provide-abortions
http://www.xojane.com/issues/i-gave-up-delivering-babies-so-i-could-provide-abortionsIssuesTue, 31 Mar 2015 09:00:00 -0700Nicole FanarjianIT HAPPENED TO ME: A Guy I Was Dating Hurt Himself Masturbating and Accused Me of Giving Him An STD<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>Charm is the worst. It makes good guys into perfect guys and douchebags into irresistible guys. It has, historically, made <em>me </em>into jelly. </p><p>Ted* was charming. He was charming throughout our first three dates. He was also hilarious, grown up, and employed, all things that had been lacking in the other guys I’d been dating that fall. He was even taking night classes for a graduate degree. </p><p>But there were always "catches" to the things I liked about him. He was fun to talk to, but it took him hours, sometimes more than a day to respond to a text. He could only squeeze me into his schedule once a week. He was generally more sexual than I was, and after our first date, he started redirecting every conversation until it was about sex.&nbsp;</p><p>When we went to see <em>Don John</em>, he didn’t even ask me my opinion on it, just made me nod through a dissertation on what sort of porn he liked best for the whole drive home. Looking back, he was obviously testing the waters. How weird a fetish could he bring up before I tried to change the topic?&nbsp;</p><p>He turned a mild make-out session into a series of demands about not wearing condoms, when I’d explicitly told him that we wouldn’t have sex for at least a few more dates and that condoms were non-negotiable at that juncture.&nbsp;</p><p>On our last date, he told me that he was really hurt by the fact that I didn’t trust him enough to have sex with him, got very mopey and passive aggressively demanded sex from me until I started to cry and left.</p><p>Looking back, it’s ludicrously obvious that I should not have wasted a month of my life on such a upturned douche canoe, and I haven’t wasted much extra time trying to justify my thought process. I’m young. I made a mistake. He made such a great first impression that it let him coast through a lot of missteps, and he was charming in the way that people describe serial killers as being charming, where you know something is off, but you can’t quite pinpoint what it is until you see the shadow against the shower curtain and the violins start to play.</p><p>So when he called me out of the blue on a Sunday morning three weeks after I’d sobbed myself out of his apartment, I was cautious and annoyed. I let the call go to voicemail, and waited until I had a cup of coffee to check the message.</p><p>He needed to talk to me. </p><p>I replied with a text, demanding to know what exactly we needed to talk about. He had two things he needed to say, one positive, and one, “not so much.” I told him that he didn’t need to tell me a negative thing three weeks <em>after</em> we’d broken up. He asked if he could call me later, and I didn’t reply.</p><p>I was in line at the grocery store when he called to say that he realized that he had been a jerk, he was sorry, and he missed me.</p><p>But also, he’d been having painful penis feelings.</p><p>I never had sex with Ted. He’d broken up with me because I’d never had sex with him. We had never done <em>anything</em> that could have made his penis issue into my penis issue. (And for the record, I have never had an STD)</p><p>He wanted to make sure that I really was clean, because he hadn’t been physical with anyone but me in the last two months, and this penis issue had just recently creeped up on him. </p><p>He also wanted to know if I was free for dinner on Friday.</p><p>There were a million reasons to say no. He was a manipulative jerk. He was probably lying about not being physical with other people. He was creepy. He had just told me that he might have an STD.</p><p>I said yes. </p><p>Maybe it was horrified fascination and I just needed to know what would happen if I went. Maybe I really thought that he meant what he was saying. Maybe I just wanted to make him buy me pie while I got the last word in.</p><div tml-image="ci01cac5aea0002a83" tml-image-caption="Pie and being right. My favorite things." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a5.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMyODkyMzI3NTQ4MTc4.jpg" /><figcaption>Pie and being right. My favorite things.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Whatever it was, we made plans for Friday evening. He told me to pick a restaurant and text him later. He promised to keep me apprised of the outcome of his exam (for his penis problem. The problem with his penis. That penis problem).</p><p>I spent Monday and Tuesday trying to justify this decision to myself and to my friends. They are all reasonable supportive people, who realized how stupid I was being. Wednesday afternoon, he texted me with his results. He did not have an STD. Then he texted me a three paragraph explanation of what had actually happened. </p><p>It seems that in the three weeks since we had broken up, he had gone through all of the Vaseline in his apartment. For masturbating. He had then gone through the last of his lotion (for masturbating) and then through most of a grody old bottle of lotion he had found under his bathroom sink (this was for dry skin. Not! Also for masturbating). Somehow he had gotten enough of the lotion far enough down his urethra to cause an extended period of intense pain and several days of irritation, which was only now starting to resolve itself, because he’d finally thrown the lotion away.</p><p>I read this unbelievable text three times. I evaluated where I wanted to be in my life. Then I forwarded the entire message to everyone I knew, and followed it with a promise that I had finally come to my senses.</p><p>I still felt like I needed to reply to Ted so that he knew I had received this deeply personal penis text. </p><p>So I sent him several links to places where he could buy water-based lube.</p><div tml-image="ci01cac5ae8001c80a" tml-image-caption="A helpful infographic for Ted." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a5.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,w_620/MTI5MTMyODkyMDU5MTM1OTcw.png" /><figcaption>A helpful infographic for Ted.</figcaption></figure></div><p>The text he sent back: “Ahh, I’m flattered by your concern for my penis” was the only prompt reply I had ever gotten from him, and my reply of “It’s not concern it’s shock. You’re a grown ass man, by some lube,” was the last thing I ever said to him.</p><p>So I didn’t get my cake, but I did get the last word, and I’ll willing to bet that some other girl got Ted’s lotion poisoned dick before the week was even up. Thank God for that.&nbsp;</p>We had never done anything that could have made his penis issue into my penis issue.http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/a-guy-hurt-himself-masturbating-and-blamed-me
http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/a-guy-hurt-himself-masturbating-and-blamed-meIt Happened To MeTue, 31 Mar 2015 08:00:00 -0700Lilith DuvalierI Shamed My Niece for Dyeing Her Hair Pink<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01cac713b0019512" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a4.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTM0NDI2NDM2MTc5MjE4.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>I couldn’t stop staring.</p><p>My niece, Rachel, a junior art major at an ivy league university looked the same as always: short and petite, with an adorable, big-eyed Kewpie-doll face. But there was one glaring difference: A shock of dip dyed bright pink bubblegum hair now framed her sweet face.</p><p>“It’s called Ion Dye. That’s what I used to color my hair, ” she announced to the table. My five-year-old daughter stared at her, fascinated. “It’s so pretty, you look like a doll,” she said.</p><p>Oh crap, I thought. The way my little one idolized Rachel, I figured she’d be asking to dye her hair soon, too.</p><p>“Why did you do this?” I asked my niece, my voice laced with barely concealed frustration. My sister shook her head. “Don’t bother,” she said. “I tried to talk her out of it. Obviously, she didn’t listen.”</p><p>Rachel was leaving the next day to go to Rome for a semester abroad.</p><p>I threw worst case scenarios at her as if lobbing smoking grenades.</p><p> “Rachel, security is going to be all over you once you get to Italy. Do you think anyone will ever hire you the way you look? Or will a normal guy want to date you? Your professors will hate it. You look…weird,” I weakly finished. She was nonplussed.</p><p>“I think it looks good,” my niece volleyed back, no stranger to parental or adult disapproval.</p><p>My sister serenely watched us, wisely staying out of the fray.</p><p>“Did you ever hear about what happened when I went to London?” I began.</p><p>“When you cut off your hair…and dyed it red?” Rachel finished my sentence.</p><p>“I saw those pictures of you, aunt Estelle. I think you looked cool,” she said with all the insouciance of youth.</p><p>“I looked like a freak, and it screwed up my chances at my job,” I said behind gritted teeth.</p><p>Though it happened nearly 30 years ago, the pain of being the ultimate beauty "don’t" still stings.</p><p> * * *</p><p>In my first job after I graduated from college I was the assistant for an account executive in a conservative, business-to-business public relations firm. As I sat at my desk, answering the phones, typing up memos, and writing the occasional press release, I looked every bit the polished professional in my pants suit, dark, face-framing curls and subtle makeup. I’d recently moved to the city from the suburbs of Long Island in anticipation of a more urban lifestyle.</p><p>After six months, my boss promised me that I was in line for a promotion to the account executive, where I’d be dealing directly with the clients.&nbsp;I left on a vacation to London feeling unstoppable.</p><p>During that trip, an English friend convinced me to go to an edgy hair salon. There, under the guise of giving me a “fashionable” hairstyle, my long hair was trimmed within an inch all around and then dyed an orangey-red. I left the salon, resembling a vibrant baby eagle. Surprisingly, I liked my mod new style.</p><div tml-image="ci01cac713a0012a83" tml-image-caption="My &quot;fashionable&quot; hairstyle in London.&amp;nbsp;" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTM0NDI1ODk5MzA4MzA2.jpg" /><figcaption>My "fashionable" hairstyle in London.&amp;nbsp;</figcaption></figure></div><p>Having the weight of the hair off my neck was freeing not just physically, but psychologically.</p><p>I had always been a “good girl,” toeing the line, losing my virginity far later than my peers, accepting the role of the dutiful daughter and responsible worker, but never quite feeling that I belonged. A friend once said that "Estelle never takes a day off from showing up." With this cut, I felt as if I was finally getting a chance to show my wild side. Of course in London in the late eighties, everyone looked like me.</p><p>Not so, back in New York City. In a city of bows and bobs, I stuck out like a peacock among pigeons.</p><p> * * *</p><p>My co-workers responded to my new style with a mixture of awe and subtle disapproval (which I shrugged off as jealousy). I regaled them with stories of going to tea at Harrods with a bunch of strangers who became friends, and dancing at clubs to songs like "Relax, Don’t Do It" from Frankie Goes to Hollywood and “Shout” from Tears for Fears.</p><p>I was called into my boss’s office at the end of the day and he sternly said that the company had decided that because of the way I looked they couldn’t put me in front of clients, so I would not be promoted until my hair grew back. Instead of getting angry with him, I was angry with myself. Why did I do such a stupid thing? Who did I think I was? Madonna?</p><p>I walked out of the office in tears, certain that I’d ruined my career with one foolish move.</p><p> * * *</p><p>Since hair grew only half an inch per month, I figured it would take at least six months till my hair would pass inspection. When my colleagues got wind of my new uncertain fate, a few of the really competitive ones, who had resented my early rise to middle management, began to undermine me. They picked at real and imagined flaws and soon nothing I did was right, from how I answered the phone, to the way I typed up a memo, to my grammar in releases. Along with my hair, my prospects for advancement had also been cut off.</p><p> * * *</p><p>My niece nonchalantly ordered dessert, unperturbed by my tale of woe. “I really feel strongly about this. I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you,” I told her.</p><p>“Aunt Estelle, I appreciate your concern. But you don’t need to worry about me, worry about yourself and your lack of an open mind,” she retorted with a smile. “I like it, my friends like it, and I’m going to be just fine.”</p><p>Of course, I realize, she wasn’t carrying the baggage I’d carried all those years ago of being trapped into being "a good girl."</p><p>Rachel was young, with few commitments, so why shouldn’t she reinvent herself? According to Meg Jay, Ph.D., a psychologist and author of <em>The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter-and how to make the most of them now</em>, the brain doesn’t fully mature until your mid-20s, particularly the parts that plan for the future and manage emotions. Jay says that your experiences then become hardwired into your brain, and it is the best chance you have to change how you think and react. “What people do in their 20s wires who they’ll be as adults,” she writes. </p><p>So, in coloring and cutting my hair, did I really make the wrong choice? Or was that stride toward independence the opposite of weakness, and instead an early indicator of my creativity and ambition?</p><p>With the perspective of time, and a less emotional brain, I’ve realized that cutting and coloring my hair was <em>my</em> personal act of rebellion. Most importantly, it was a blessing in disguise.</p><p>Making that choice pushed me to leave a job in a field that didn’t suit my talents and abilities, to find a job working in magazines, which started me on a very productive and personally rewarding 20-plus year career in publishing.</p><p> * * *</p><p>We heard from Rachel shortly after she arrived in Rome. Changing her hair color didn’t put a single blip in her academic or social life and she said her favorite professor complimented her on her hair, telling her “it looked cool.” Perhaps being in a field like art allowed people to accept that aspect of her. I like to think that society has evolved so that women can feel free to make the choices with their hair and bodies that are right for them, without outside pressure.</p><p>I heard that New York Fashion week concluded this year with <a href="http://www.style.com/beauty/backstage/2015/gucci-fall-2015-hair-makeup">Gucci’s show</a>, where the models strutted down the runway, wearing pale pink dip dyed hair. I can’t wait to tell my niece.</p><p>It’s 2015, and for young women, the spotlight’s never looked so good.</p>I warned my niece that dyeing her hair pink condemned her to the kind of ridicule I had once faced. But I discovered that while society had evolved, I was still stuck in the dark ages.http://www.xojane.com/beauty/i-shamed-my-niece-for-dyeing-her-hair-pink
http://www.xojane.com/beauty/i-shamed-my-niece-for-dyeing-her-hair-pinkBeautyTue, 31 Mar 2015 06:00:00 -0700Estelle ErasmusI’m Sick of Travel Writers Who Insist That Anyone Can Afford to Travel<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01cac64b70019512" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMzNTYyMzQyNDY5NjAy.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>I didn’t mind sleeping on the floor when I was a kid. If you do it right, it has its advantages and can be surprisingly comfortable. You could sleep quite well on a makeshift bed of carefully layered sheets and comforters, and in humid subtropical Central Florida where I grew up, I didn’t have to worry about warmth. In the morning, you could make the bed in a flash since there wasn’t a bed to be made. </p><p>For most of my childhood, we didn’t have beds, and other regular pieces of furniture because we couldn’t afford them. The money simply wasn’t there, and my mom did the best she could to make sure that we, her six children, at least had a roof over our heads and that we didn’t die of starvation. There wasn’t any disposable income, which meant no eating out at restaurants, no new toys, no new school clothes at the beginning of the fall semester, no summer days at Orlando theme parks an hour’s drive away, no new shoes from Payless if they cost more than $15. When the dryer broke, we hung up a clothesline in the backyard for months. When I needed to call my mom to pick me up from high school, I would be one of the only kids to use the pay phone. If we only had a few basic food items in the house, such as flour and butter, we would get creative and find a way to make something of it. </p><p>Travel was out of the question. If my family and I were all living in Orlando today, and my parents wanted to take us all on a trip to DC, plane tickets alone would cost at least $1400, or more than the mortgage that my mom used to pay. Add in lodging costs, food, etc, and such a vacation would be financially impossible on our budget, even with a cheaper method of transportation. Consequently, I had never been on a plane until I was 22, never out of the Eastern Time Zone until I was 23, and never out of the country until I was 24. </p><p>Astronomical travel costs make it nearly impossible for poor families in the US to see the world, or even their own country. So it infuriates me when I read blogs and articles by mostly white, middle class travel writers who insist that anyone can travel, no matter their financial circumstances, and that those who have financial obstacles simply aren’t trying hard enough. </p><p>If you’ve ever looked for advice on how to fund long term travel, you may have found many articles with <a href="http://www.adventurouskate.com/how-i-saved-13000-for-travel-in-just-seven-months/">common sense advice</a>. Stop buying lattes, use coupons, cook more meals at home, stop going to the movies, pick up extra hours, sell things you own, etc. This is great advice for someone who is not already doing these things just to survive, as my family did. Cutting out unnecessary expenses is a great way to save money, but for many people there is simply nothing else to cut out. In one piece, entitled “<a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/stephanie-yoder/2013/11/how-to-save-20000-and-quit-your-job/">How to Save $20,000 and Quit Your Job</a>”, the writer states that she not only sold her car, but she moved in with her mom to cut on expenses. Another traveler <a href="http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/michael-success-story/">reportedly saved $15,000 for his round the world trip</a>&nbsp;while making just $9 an hour, also with the help of selling his car and other items.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;Again, this is helpful, but only if you have a car to sell in the first place and the ability to move back in with your parents. </p><p>What irks me the most is the pompous, condescending tone that travel writers take to shame people who can’t afford to travel. It seems that in the eyes of seasoned budget travelers, people who are poor, need to keep a job, have loved ones to take care of, student loans, or other financial considerations, are simply making excuses for not following their dream because they choose not to prioritize it, or because they just don’t believe enough. One popular budget travel blogger wrote a post directed towards these people, entitled “<a href="http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/too-poor-to-travel-mindset/">How to Change the ‘I’m Too Poor to Travel Mindset’ and Say Yes to Travel</a>. ” He says, “When it comes to travel, people think what’s holding them back is money...Nothing about their circumstance prevents them from traveling except their own mindset.”&nbsp;</p><p>Forget poverty, bills, children, and your minimum wage job. The only reason why you can’t travel is because you aren’t sending enough positive vibes out into the universe. Not that I don’t believe that someone who doesn’t have much money can find a way to travel, because I really do. But this idea that anyone can travel sounds a lot like the idea that anyone can come from poverty and become rich. It’s not impossible, but due to circumstances out of one’s control, it is unlikely.&nbsp;</p><p>Travel can be rewarding, but I don’t believe it is necessary to lead a fulfilling life. Many of the benefits of travel, such as getting out of your comfort zone, learning about other cultures, and meeting new people, are things that can be achieved right at home through less expensive hobbies.</p><p>Even though I didn’t come from much, last year I decided that I was sick of my jobs and my life, and that I needed to start over and move to Madrid, <a href="http://www.setacourseforhome.com/">where I live now</a>. Like some of the bloggers mentioned above, I worked many hours (sometimes I didn’t have any days off for weeks at a time), and was able to apply for credit. But I would never look down upon someone who couldn’t do what I did. I had two jobs and was able to save money from them. I don’t have children or loved ones to take care of. I don’t have any health issues that would reduce my disposable income. I was able to get a job in Spain, and I was able to apply for credit. Did I have to plan and work to make this happen? Of course. </p><p>But also, in some ways I was just lucky. Lucky that I had the ability to save. Lucky to have consistent, near perfect physical health. Lucky to have the ability to go to college, which was helped my get my current job, and the previous jobs that helped me save. Lucky to not have ever run into any life circumstances that would have damaged my credit, excluding me from getting credit cards. Lucky to not have ever been arrested, which could have prevented me from getting a visa. (Following the law has little to do with luck, but we know that certain groups of marginalized people are treated worse by the criminal justice system.)&nbsp;</p><p>Budget travel writers may have worked hard to get where they are, but just like me, they’re also lucky. Ignoring this, and the financial circumstances that prevent people from seeing the world, is simply classist.&nbsp;</p>Travel can be rewarding, but I don’t believe it is necessary to lead a fulfilling life.http://www.xojane.com/issues/not-everyone-can-afford-to-travel
http://www.xojane.com/issues/not-everyone-can-afford-to-travelIssuesMon, 30 Mar 2015 14:00:00 -0700Keziyah LewisNo, Starbucks Wasn’t Cyberbullied Over #RaceTogether, and Backlash Isn’t Bullying<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>This NBC news feature “<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/cyberbullyings-got-new-target-big-companies-n331656">Cyberbullying's Got a New Target: Big Companies</a>”&nbsp;posits that recent online backlash toward ill-conceived initiatives by large corporate entities constitutes cyberbullying, and I disagree.</p><p>In painting companies like JP Morgan Chase and Starbucks as the victim, they reinforce the false narrative that we’re all on equal ground. Social media has given individuals, and especially marginalized groups, the ability to be heard to an extent that is growing every day, but negatively responding to a corporate question or conversation begun by the corporation, is not bullying.</p><p>Absolving the corporate entities of guilt or responsibility is the surest way to protect the barrier between Us and Them that allows this to happen in the first place. In referencing the recent DC Comics controversy that involved upset fans airing their concerns over <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/03/18/batgirl-joker-controversial-cover-art/">a proposed Batgirl cover that portrayed her being held captive by the Joker</a>,&nbsp;we’re told that “something as anodyne as a comic cover can become a battle cry for aggrieved comic book fans.” </p><p>Excuse me? You may think that comics or their covers are “anodyne,” but clearly the fans do not. Beyond that, the cover referenced an older storyline of sexual assault and showed their <em>hero</em>&nbsp;Batgirl being held at gunpoint by a man and crying. To poo-poo that as harmless imagery in an arena where women are fighting against a more resistant strain of sexism than in many other environments is either terribly uninformed or willfully ignorant. <a href="http://www.xojane.com/issues/strange-fruit-pr-lynching">Pushback</a>&nbsp;against harmful imagery is not cyberbullying.</p><p>Articles like this one fuel the pearl-clutching fear of these companies, and that fear is what leads them to go off half-cocked on social media. That’s totally counterintuitive, since glaring examples of social media failures seem as though they would serve as cautionary tales. But if that were the case, we’d be seeing fewer large-scale corporate social media fiascos, when in actuality we are seeing more.</p><p>In the example of JP Morgan Chase, they announced a Twitter Q&amp;A back in 2013 that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/askjpm-twitter-qa-turns-i_n_4269795.html">they canceled after immediate scorn from Twitter users</a>.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/24/mcdstories-when-a-hashtag-becomes-a-bashtag/">Just like McDonald’s</a>.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/22/well-the-mynypd-hashtag-sure-backfired-quickly">Just like the NYPD</a>.&nbsp;And on and on…</p><p>Either these companies are brazen enough to think, “Oh,&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;fouled that up, but it won’t happen to us,” because of an inflated sense of how much the public loves them, or an erroneous sense that their corporate prominence and perhaps their longtime financial domination render them beyond reproach. They fail to see that the exact qualities that make them such successful corporate entities are ensuring their downfall on social media, as opposed to imagined cyberbullying campaigns.</p><p>To be at the head of a Starbucks or a JP Morgan Chase, or even to be high enough on the food chain that you’re developing initiatives like the ghastly Starbucks <a href="http://www.xojane.com/issues/top-ten-reasons-starbucks-race-together-is-a-mess">#RaceTogether</a> mess, you have to be breathing rarified air that the average Twitter user does not breathe.</p><p>I want to believe it isn’t so. I want to believe that wealthy bankers and CEOs and marketing executives can be “just like us,” and I genuinely don’t like making assumptions and drawing strict dividing lines between us as humans based on a profession or status.</p><p>However. The online actions of these companies indicate that they either didn’t seek out or don’t care about the opinion of the average consumer, and they stubbornly refuse to learn from prevalent PR fails. The trend these days is for transparency, but that isn’t in keeping with how these powerful companies got that way, so they make half-assed efforts at transparency that are ultimately opaque.</p><p>They hold traditional auditions for commercials and spend millions to make them look like low-quality Vines because that’s what’s hot. But they don’t speak the language, and they’re often too haughty to learn from the natives.&nbsp;</p><p>Yes, there have been examples of major companies throwing bags of money at legitimate Vine or YouTube “sensations,” like <a href="https://www.hyundaiusa.com/about-hyundai/news/Corporate_holiday_promotion_sensation_youtube_pomplamoose-20101129.aspx">Hyundai making stars out of music group Pomplamoose</a>&nbsp;a few years back, but there’s largely the feeling that the big companies know best and they’ll do things in a big company way, even if it’s grassroots social media.</p><p>Thinking they know best is part of what made them successful in the first place. And it is what keeps them screwing up on the social media stage, and worse—not learning from their mistakes and the mistakes of others in the most functional ways. It takes humility to second-guess your plan, and too much second-guessing may sabotage success. Yet, a second opinion is crucial. Big companies spend trillions on market research, but when it comes to social media, they harbor misconceptions fueled by unchecked hubris.</p><p>They think “people are too sensitive these days” instead of “how can we display some sensitivity?” <a href="http://allvalid.com/piaglenn/ayo-corporate-twitter-accounts-yall-need-to-chill-on-appropriating-black-culture-son/">They see AAVE and slang</a>&nbsp;and online trends and steal them, discounting the value of culture and intellectual property because it doesn’t translate readily to dollars and cents. They think of Twitter backlash as the modern-day boogeyman, some unnamed terror waiting in the dark to ruin their best laid plans.</p><p>These cries of cyberbullying are rooted in not taking responsibility and not recognizing the agency of human beings using social media in real time. Unfortunately, some people <em>have</em> gotten vicious in their indictment of certain hashtags and corporate campaigns. But backlash, clapback, response, debate, dissent… there are many ways to describe what happens, and each has its own qualities, but when the “victim” is Starbucks, we’re not talking about cyberbullying.</p><p>Language evolves with us and the word “cyberbully” itself is relatively new, (and we can’t even come to a consensus about whether it’s one word or two), but however you slice it, there is an element of power involved with bullying that isn’t going anywhere. A schoolyard bully using violence is bigger or stronger. A classroom bully using brains or snark is smarter. An online bully has a cloak of anonymity yet calls the victim out by name, or they have the power of a mob, digitally assembled for the purpose of attacking the victim.</p><p>Even if you want to say that these large companies were “attacked,” it was in direct response to their actions and sometimes, their request for conversation. That doesn’t necessarily make it OK, but it also doesn’t make it cyberbullying. If we’re going to have the conversation, we need to be clear and specific and have them take more accountability.</p><p>As a parallel, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/when-mean-tweets-go-too-far-419323971855">I recently appeared on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” </a>discussing online bullying, and I discussed horrific messages I’ve personally received online in the aftershow.&nbsp;Invitations to kill myself or go die in a fire, death and rape threats, and pictures of black people being lynched have all made unwelcome appearances in my Twitter mentions. Yet I don’t call it cyberbullying.</p><div tml-image="ci01cac60ce0012a83" tml-image-caption="I didn’t want to search my file of screenshots, so I just went with a recent one. Troll or not, it gets to be a bit much. Still not cyberbullying." tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMzMjk3Mzk2NjUyNTEw.jpg" /><figcaption>I didn’t want to search my file of screenshots, so I just went with a recent one. Troll or not, it gets to be a bit much. Still not cyberbullying.</figcaption></figure></div><p>This is not OK, and <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/7982099/twitter-ceo-sent-memo-taking-personal-responsibility-for-the">Twitter itself has stated that it needs to do better with regard to harassment</a>, but I’m a person who expresses strong opinions online and on television and the worst of the messages are either from people who disagree or actual hateful trolls who post racist and sexist messages for sport.&nbsp;</p><p>Again; this is not OK. It is a problem that we as an online community are addressing and will continue to work on, but again: I don’t see it as cyberbullying.</p><p>These people have no power over me. I’m not trying to be some big badass here—there have been times when the force of it has made me cry or rant or log off when I didn’t really want to, but there is no actual power differential that we can point to. </p><p>Starbucks and JP Morgan Chase, as entities with corporate social media accounts, are not at the same level of societal power as private individuals who reply to a hashtag conversation <em>request</em> with anger.</p><p>Another thing to look at is the outcome. Has Starbucks gone out of business? Was CEO Howard Schultz forced to step down? Mind you, I’m not suggesting that these are desired outcomes at all.</p><p>I’m saying that in a world where <a href="http://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/statistics.html">Megan Meier</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://amandatoddlegacy.org">Amanda Todd</a>, <a href="http://nobullying.com/ryan-halligan/">Ryan Halligan</a>,&nbsp;and <a href="http://www.tylerclementi.org/">Tyler Clementi</a>&nbsp;are only a few of the victims who have committed suicide due to being cyberbullied, I’ll thank you not to throw around the word “cyberbullying” with respect to major corporations that continue to prosper.</p><p>I feel crass even using their names as examples, but I still have air in my lungs and Starbucks is still thriving, so it’s important to me that we’re not all lumped into one barrel of digital victimhood. Cyberbullying absolutely does not require a loss of life to be real, but <a href="http://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/">look</a> at how many lives have been <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-ninth-teenager-since-last-september-has-committed-suicide#.pdBqaJ9Y0">lost</a>.</p><p>Words mean things. That goes for the terribly lost souls who use the internet to tell people they should die, as well as for those would lump major companies in with actual victims of cyberbullying. Social media absolutely can whirl out of control for a number of reasons, and I actually don’t agree with certain instances of public citizens’ jobs being called for in certain instances, but in the conversation about “big companies,” cyberbullying doesn’t come into play.</p><p>We throw around the word "bully" so much that a strong response becomes the sin of the responder, regardless of what they were responding to. Words mean things, and we all have to do better.</p><p><em>Promo image by&nbsp;<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:4028mdk09">4028mdk09</a>&nbsp;/ <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">Creative Commons</a>.</em></p>Starbucks and JP Morgan Chase are not at the same level of societal power as private individuals who reply to a hashtag conversation request with anger.http://www.xojane.com/issues/backlash-isnt-cyberbullying-starbucks-racetogether
http://www.xojane.com/issues/backlash-isnt-cyberbullying-starbucks-racetogetherIssuesMon, 30 Mar 2015 13:00:00 -0700Pia GlennThese Are The 6 Hardest Moments Of Being A Single Parent<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01cac216f001c80a" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a1.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTI4OTQyMjk5ODM2Mzg2.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>I’m a single mom to a 3 year old and a 6 year old. They are the reason I get out of bed in the morning and the reason I feel like yanking my hair out at night. I love them more than I ever thought possible, but when I started this parenting journey I never imagined doing it alone. I never expected to be a single parent (or in my case an only parent) and there are a few things that stick out as being particularly hard.&nbsp;</p><h3><strong>1. When I Worry Alone</strong></h3><p>I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced a feeling as lonely as worrying about my children alone. When I’m up all night worrying over a high fever or when I’m struggling to know if I’ve made the right parenting decision, it can feel very overwhelming and lonely. I don’t miss my ex, but I miss the role he was supposed to play. The burden of knowing that I am the only person invested in my children’s future is a hard one to bear.</p><h3><strong>2. When I Celebrate Alone</strong></h3><p>The lifetimes of our children are heavily marked with milestones of achievement and moments that make memories. While I look forward to them just as much as any other parent, I hate that every celebration is also met with the sting of celebrating alone. Being the single voice cheering my son on as he took his first steps and being the single set of hands clapping at my daughter’s kindergarten graduation, is a subtle and painful reminder of the person who is missing out on everything my children are accomplishing.</p><h3><strong>3. When I Cry Alone</strong></h3><p>Single moms, you know what I’m talking about here; that moment when you finally break down and let the tears flow. Our lives are hard and we need a good cry every once in a while, but when I cry alone it just seems to magnify the fact that there is no one here to help me. I realize that it’s up to me and only me to pull myself back together and that I have no choice but to do so. There is no one there to give me a hug.</p><h3><strong>4. When I Have To Ask For Help</strong></h3><p>I don’t like asking for help. As a single mother, my biggest fear is that I won’t be enough for my children. Because of that, I desperately try to manage everything, and balance everything, because if I can pull it all off, I am able to convince myself that I really can do this. As much as I want to be enough though, sometimes I simply can’t be and when those moments arise I have no choice but to ask for help. While people are willing and eager to help me, setting aside my pride and admitting that I can’t do it all can be a tough pill to swallow, no matter how much it is a lesson that I need to learn.</p><h3><strong>5. When I Disappoint My Child</strong></h3><p>There isn’t a parent on the face of the planet that will go through their child’s life without ever disappointing them, but for single parents those disappointing moments can hit harder than they do for coupled parents. Whether it’s because of time constraints, finances, or the fact that I simply cannot always play the role of two parents, there is nothing that feels worse than seeing my children's sad faces and knowing that I can’t give them what they want. Sure there is usually a life lesson wrapped up in there, but sometimes I just wish they didn’t have to learn anything that I wasn’t ready to teach them. Sometimes I wish I could just give them what they want, because as a parent, sometimes I simply just want to see them happy.</p><h3><strong>#6 When I Have To Explain To My Child Where Their Other Parent Is</strong></h3><p>For me this is the single hardest part of being a single mother -- having to explain a situation to my child that I don’t even understand. <em>Why did dad choose to leave?</em> I don’t know. <em>Does my dad still love me?</em> I hope so. <em>Is my dad ever coming back? </em>I don’t think so. Watching my child struggle to understand the absence of their father never gets any easier and I’m pretty sure it never will. </p><p>I love my kids and I love my life. If given the choice between being a single mother and not being a mother at all, there’s no hesitation that I would choose being a single mother. But as any parent can attest, there some parts of parenthood that are nothing but rough. Unfortunately for single mothers we have to go through those moments alone.&nbsp;</p><p>Luckily, my children are worth it.</p><div tml-image="ci01cac216c0012a83" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTI4OTQxMjI2MDcyNTQy.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>I never planned on being a single parent, and, while I love my children, there are a few challenges that stand out from the rest.http://www.xojane.com/family/hardest-moments-in-single-parenting
http://www.xojane.com/family/hardest-moments-in-single-parentingFamily DramaMon, 30 Mar 2015 12:00:00 -0700Eden StrongMy 6 Favorite Unconventional Places To Get Some Thinking Done<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>I find that I do my best thinking in places that stress most people out. This is my strange form of self-care, I suppose. If I have a problem that I need to work out, or something that I’m thinking about that I can’t solve myself, something about putting myself into situations that, to most, are a headache, really lets me work it out. All of these places are public spaces. I value my alone time, the days where I sit at home and pluck chin hairs and eat peanut butter from a spoon and watch an embarrassing amount of HGTV, but the confines of my apartment are not conducive to thinking about anything.</p><p>The thoughts get trapped in the walls of my apartment, zipping around in tight circles, like mosquitos or that one really big fly you just can’t kill. My preferred type of alone time is time spent adjacent to the millions of people that live in my city. So, when I’ve had a fight with whoever, or am thinking about the big, crazy list of tasks that I would normally need a flowchart and a Xanax to deal with, I get the hell out of my house. “I’m going to touch stuff,” I tell my roommate on my way out. “It helps me think.”</p><p><strong>1. The Home Goods Section At T.J Maxx</strong></p><div tml-image="ci01cac444a0012a83" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMxMzM3MjgwOTg5ODI3.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>When thinking about things that are relaxing, the disorganized home goods section of a discount chain retailer is not most people’s happy place, but don’t discount it. I have lost hours of my life working out persnickety moral quandaries listening to music and absentmindedly touching non-stick pans and those weird jars of off-brand jalapeno jelly and pickles.</p><p><strong>2. Sephora</strong></p><div tml-image="ci01cac444800199de" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMxMzM3MjgxMDE3MTA2.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>The vague promise of self-improvement combined with the fact that it generally smells nice in here makes Sephora the perfect place for working out whatever’s going on that’s bothering you. Overly made-up women coming at you with lipstick samples isn’t relaxing, but spraying every single perfume you think you might want to buy on your body and walking out certainly is.</p><p><strong>3. Your Morning Commute</strong></p><div tml-image="ci01cac444700199de" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a1.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMxMzM3MjgwOTUxNTcw.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>Commutes by nature are not relaxing, because it is early, you have had no coffee or too much coffee or not quite enough coffee, and you’re going to work, for Christ’s sake, the least relaxing place of all. But hear me out — your commute is a precious swatch of time in each day in which you have permission to just zone out, play Candy Crush, read and, most importantly, forget all your problems.</p><p><strong>4. Doing Laundry<br tml-linebreak="true" /></strong></p><div tml-image="ci01cac4449001c80a" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.xojane.com/image/upload/MTI5MTMxMzM3MjgwOTI0Mjkx.gif" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>Nothing is more mindless than shoving weirdly stained things and socks into a washing machine and hanging out until it’s all clean. Read a book. Put your phone away. Sit and watch your laundry spin. Think about things. Practice your folding techniques honed after years of retail labor at Urban Outfitters.</p><p><strong>5. The Grocery Store</strong></p><div tml-image="ci01cac444b001c80a" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a4.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMxMzM3MjgwOTc0ODE4.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>Touching food is soothing. Also, buying groceries is something you probably have to do anyway, so you’re being productive, but really take your time and enjoy it. It’s not the worst place in the world, anymore, right? It’s actually not a bad place. Touch all the avocados, then buy two. Think about whether or not you want to break up with your boyfriend. By the time you check out, you’ll have a bag full of snacks and an answer.</p><p><strong>6. The Drugstore</strong></p><div tml-image="ci01cac444a00199de" tml-image-caption="" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MTMxMzM3MjgwOTY0NjE4.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>The fluorescent lights and the picked over aisles of my local Duane Reade are my default thinking place when I have something I’m trying to work over, or need to get out of my house without <em>actually</em> going out. Sometimes I end up buying a lipstick I already own, but usually I just leave with a magazine and a Kit-Kat, and my “leaving the house” bucket is full for the day.</p><p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/2015-03-29/6-unconventional-places-to-get-some-thinking-done/">The Frisky</a>. Want more? Read these related articles from <a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/">The Frisky</a>:</em></p><p><em><a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/2014-05-25/study-being-at-home-is-more-stressful-than-being-at-work/">Study: Being At Home Is More Stressful Than Being At Work</a></em></p><p><a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-02-27/10-totally-non-awkward-activities-to-do-alone/"><em>10 Totally Non-Awkward Activities To Do Alone</em></a><br tml-linebreak="true" /></p><p><em><a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/2015-02-11/here-are-the-weird-ways-we-cope-with-stress/">Here Are The Weird Ways We Cope With Stress</a></em></p>I value the days where I sit at home, pluck chin hairs, eat peanut butter from a spoon, and watch an embarrassing amount of HGTV, but the confines of my apartment are not conducive to thinking about anything.http://www.xojane.com/fun/my-6-favorite-places-to-go-think
http://www.xojane.com/fun/my-6-favorite-places-to-go-thinkFunMon, 30 Mar 2015 11:30:00 -0700Megan ReynoldsCan We Please Start Talking More Openly and Honestly About Periods?<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01ca8672d001c80a" tml-image-caption="This photo was removed twice by Instagram.&amp;nbsp;" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MDYzMzY2NzM5MTEwNTMx.jpg" /><figcaption>This photo was removed twice by Instagram.&amp;nbsp;</figcaption></figure></div><p>A photo of a fully clothed woman lying in bed with a period stain on her clothes and sheets was <a href="http://www.scoopwhoop.com/news/insta-photo/">removed twice by Instagram</a>.&nbsp;Even though the photo does not include nudity, sexual acts or violence Instagram claimed the photo, taken by Canadian poet Rupi Kaur did not follow community guidelines. Instagram has since claimed it was removed accidentally and has issued an apology to Kaur who took the photo as part of a series she and her sister had created about menstruation. You can read Kaur’s powerful response and see more of her work at <a href="http://www.rupikaur.com">rupikaur.com.</a></p><p>Whether or not Instagram accidentally removed the photo, this incident does raise a bigger issue which is how uncomfortable many seem to still be about menstruation. </p><p>When I was in fifth grade, there was a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVnvLwEOqJw">commercial for OB tampons</a>&nbsp;that would play constantly during "General Hospital." (Yes, I watched soap operas at age 10). Even though I was watching <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisco_Jones_and_Felicia_Cummings">Frisco and Felicia</a> doing it (mind you at the time I thought "doing it" was a guy lays in bed with a sheet up to his waist and girl lays in bed with a sheet up to her collarbone), I didn't know the purpose of a tampon.&nbsp;</p><p>Up until that point, my only experience with menstruation was screaming "<em>At least I don't bleed in my pants</em>" at my 14-year-old sister as we stood in a very crowded walkway of the Smithsonian. We were on a family vacation in DC and earlier in the trip I caught my mom washing my sister's period-stained jeans in the hotel bathroom sink. I just assumed she cut her butt or something and thus used this info to shame her in the middle of our nation's capital.</p><p>So back to that OB commercial. The ad had a super catchy tune and featured cute girls in fun black-and-white outfits dancing, so I, being the ham I was, would sing the OB song while dancing around the school yard at recess. <em>"OB it's the way it should be! Keep it simple and set yourself free!" </em>I thought to myself<em> "w</em>hat a lovely for advertisement for happiness" (if only you could buy a box of happiness at CVS).&nbsp;</p><p>Eventually a boy in my class told me the song I was singing was gross. He didn't give the greatest explanation except that my favorite show tune was about "disgusting secret stuff that happens down there." I immediately canceled all future OB song performances. The last thing I wanted to be as a 5th grade girl was disgusting to a boy.</p><p>A year later, when I got a more proper education about menstruation in health class I felt embarrassed about my musical numbers at recess and for the Smithsonian incident. (I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to my sister). I also felt dread that soon I would have to deal with ruining my jeans every month for the next 35+ years.&nbsp;</p><p>I also, in retrospect, felt angry that the boys and girls were separated when we learned about our periods. Maybe if the boys learned exactly what a period was and what it did, they wouldn’t be so terrified of it.&nbsp;</p><p>Two years later, when I did get my first period it wasn't as scary as I feared. My mom cried with joy and my grandma gave me $50 to congratulate me (and I was like "<em>Oooh does this mean I'll get $50 every month?")&nbsp;</em></p><div tml-image="ci01ca886f70012a83" tml-image-caption="Me, the year I got my first period&amp;nbsp;" tml-render-layout="inline"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.xojane.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI5MDY1NTUwOTk4NDY2NTMw.jpg" /><figcaption>Me, the year I got my first period&amp;nbsp;</figcaption></figure></div><p>I was kind of bummed that having my period wasn't all about joyfully dancing in polka dots but also relieved that having my period didn't automatically equate to ruining my Z Cavariccis.&nbsp;</p><p>What followed my first period was years of sneaking off to the bathroom with a tampon slipped up my sleeve so that no one would know I was experiencing “disgusting secret stuff that happens down there.” I’d look around the room for potential spies before shamefully whispering<em> “Do you have a pad?” </em>to my girlfriends. I’d make sure my tampons were discretely buried in my dorm room closet so as not to make male visitors uncomfortable. </p><p>While I obviously can’t speak for all women, I assume many would agree that the relationship we have with our periods is complicated. It can feel like a blessing and a curse. </p><p>I hate it when arrives in the middle of me trapped on a 4-hour bus ride without a tampon. I hate when the days leading up to my period I’m bloated, cranky and if anyone even come within 5 inches of my breasts, I feel pain. I hate it when I just put in a new tampon and 20 minutes later I’ve already bled through the tampon, my underwear and onto my friend’s sofa. </p><p>I love when arrives in the midst of one of my (frequent and unwarranted) pregnancy scares. I am a paranoid person, so even when I’m on the pill, using condoms and having him pull out, I think I’m pregnant. (I’m getting older so my pregnancy scares are now turning into “<em>Will I ever get pregnant?” </em>scares, but that’s a whole other story). I love it when as soon as I get my period, I feel lighter and refreshed and like my body is purging out a month's worth of blood and feelings. I loved my period when, back in 2001 it finally returned after a six month hiatus caused by a stint of disordered eating. When I got healthy and my period returned, I never felt more grateful for cramps in my life. It took a while, but my love definitely surpasses my hate.</p><p>It makes me sad that periods aren’t more frequently and freely spoken about in a genuine way when it is such a significant thing in women’s lives. The portrayal of menstruation in pop culture is usually in the form of a schlubby sitcom husband who gets embarrassed when he has to go to the drugstore and buy tampons for his wife. Periods are used as a write-off for women’s moods <em>“She’s being a real bitch, must be her time of the month”</em> or as an insult certain men say to other men <em>“Stop being such a pussy bro, what are you on your period?”</em> As a comedian, I’ve been told not to talk about my period on stage because it’s “too female.”&nbsp;</p><p>Meanwhile if it weren’t for periods none of us would even be here right now. Based on that fact alone, menstruation deserves to be celebrated not shamed. I bet if men bled once a month, penis tampon companies would proudly sponsor race car drivers. That photo Kaur shared was one of the most realistic portrayals of menstruation I’ve seen in media, more of that please!&nbsp;</p><p>So if Beyonce is reading this, I implore her to write an empowering song about how wings on your maxi pad gives girls the wings to fly toward their dreams. </p><p>While the attitude that boy had toward periods in 5th grade is still the attitude some folks (aka people that reported that Instagram photo) still have as adults, I’m just glad my attitude changed. I walk to the bathroom with a tampon blatantly in my hand. As a comedian, I make period jokes on stage that make women <em>and</em> men laugh. And once in a while I even find myself singing that catchy OB song in public. Yes folks, EVERY MONTH FOR 3-4 DAYS I BLEED FROM MY VAGINA! There, I said it. It’s on the Internet, forever. God, that felt good. </p><p>I’d love to hear about your periods in the comments -- the moment you learned what it was, the moment you really hated it or learned to love it, times you also shamed your poor bleeding older sister.</p><p>And if you hated everything I wrote in this essay, just blame it on it being my “time of the month.”</p>It makes me sad that periods aren’t more frequently spoken about in a genuine way when they are such a significant thing in women’s lives.http://www.xojane.com/issues/issues-period-pride
http://www.xojane.com/issues/issues-period-prideIssuesMon, 30 Mar 2015 11:17:57 -0700Giulia Rozzi